Hide and Seek
by kmbloomy
Summary: Iggy, what happened to you? You were never a murderer. You were far from it…and now, here we are, hiding from you in fear…those that are left of us, that is. Can't you see what the School has done to you? rating may change
1. Prologue

_Iggy, what happened to you? You were never a murderer. You were far from it…and now, here we are, hiding from you in fear…those that are left of us, that is. Can't you see what the School has done to you? _

**Hey look! A new maximum ride story! I literally just started this on a whim. I've really gotten into the "horror/insanity" thing with characters, and usually it's with my fave characters, so expect some freaky stuff. So anyway, quick prologue type dealio, so please enjoy!**

**I OWN NOTHING MAXIMUM RIDE RELATED. Though I wish I did…**

The wind always felt great when it's slipping in between my midnight feathers as we flew through the air at top speed. My hair whipped around, occasionally blocking my sight, but I didn't care. It was a clear day out, not a bird in the sky, so I had no worries on crashing into anything. We –being the six of us, plus a dog- were staying in a somewhat formation as we sailed to our next destination: Minnesota. Or Minne-SNOW-ta, as some of us preferred to call it. Why were we going there? I wasn't entirely sure, it was all Max's idea. Something about how we've gone everywhere else and how she wanted to see the Mall of America…or something like that. I wasn't paying much attention at the time. Maybe it was the voice in her head that was telling her to go there. But honestly, don't know don't care.

I glanced around me, looking at the rest of the flock. Maximum Ride in the lead, listening as Nudge yaps away on a topic that jumped from place to place, as per usual. To my left were Angel and her magic talking dog named Total, conversing quietly and giggling now and then. They were probably gossiping about the rest of us in the flock. To my right were the Gasman, AKA Gazzy, and Iggy. Iggy had Gazzy's hand, using him as a guide as they flew. Occasionally Iggy let go, but when we changed direction Gazzy regained the grip he had before.

I suppose that leaves me last for the introductions. I'm Fang, third oldest along side Max and Iggy. The flock and I grew up in a science lab known as the School, where the White Coats experimented on us, giving us out amazing wings. The wings we could easily live with. The only one permanently damaged by the School was Iggy, seeing as they blinded him in an experiment to enhance our sight at night. You may have noticed that my introduction of myself was barely about myself. I guess there's really not much to say about me. Oh well, you'll just have to live with it.

"Hey guys!" Iggy suddenly called out. All our attention snapped to Iggy. "I hear something headed out way!" he shouted over the wind.

"What's it sound like? A bird? What kind of bird? A robin? Eagle? Hawk? Is it small or big?"

"Nudge, it's not a bird," Iggy said. We all went quiet so he could listen, which, believe me, was a huge feat for Nudge. A short minute passed and we never tore our eyes off Iggy.

When he spoke, all our nerves shot up, adrenalin pumped through our veins, and we nearly froze midair. "A…missile…?"

That's when we heard the high pitched whistle. And that's where the world went black for us.

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	2. Chapter 1: the School

**And here's the official first chapter, I hope you like it.**

**Chapter 1**

I could hear everyone rustling and shifting around in the cages we woke up in. I was the first one up –as far as I knew- and after what felt like hours everyone else started to wake up too. Hours is what it felt like, anyway. It was probably only minutes. Groans began filling the room and I knew they didn't know where we were yet. It was Iggy freaking out that snapped everyone back to reality.

"What's going on?" Iggy's hoarse voice croaked out. He panicked, and for a minute, the only thing I could hear in the pitch black room was Iggy thrashing about his cage, ramming his cage into I assume Max's cage and my own cage, making a loud ruckus that could wake a deaf man from the deepest sleep in the world. I reached my hand in, getting it knocked around a little bit and grabbed Iggy's shoulder firmly. He freaked out a bit more and a chorus of us bird kids formed, trying to calm him down.

"It's okay Ig," I said once he calmed down, removing my hand finally.

"No its not. We're in cages. Cages, Fang!" Iggy choked out. "Why are we in cages? What happened? Oh God, I feel sick…" Max spoke softly to him from the other side of his cage and I heard him scoot over to her. Max always knew how to calm us down.

"Fang…?" I looked the other way towards where I assumed was Angel. Hesitating, unsure if I was in the right cage or not, I stuck my hand through the bars and was reassured that I was right when her small hand gripped mine.

"Yeah?" I asked, lowering my voice to a whisper as to not disturb anything else in the room.

"I'm scared. Where's Total?" her tiny voice said.

"I don't know."

Silence. And then, "Why are we here?"

"I don't know," I said again.

Iggy continued freaking out. I had never seen something like that before. We knew we were in the School again. But none of us had the strength to fight back. We wondered exactly what happened to us, discussing quietly why, exactly, we had no energy, what was happening to us, and why we were back. But Iggy. It was insane; I had never, ever seen him like this. I never though it was possible for him to freak out this much. He must have been really sick, because in the time –what felt like days- we had been trapped in the cages, he had thrown up twice, and left to lay in whatever little food he had in his stomach that decided to make a reappearance into the dismal world we were trapped it.

At one point the White Coats had decided to relocate us into a brighter room. Most of us had no energy to fight back and try to break out of our cage. We were all stunned when Iggy began freaking out as his cage was lifted onto the cart they were moving us with. His cage was actually knocked onto the ground and flipped over a few times, sending Iggy crashing around in it. Eventually they ended up using a tranquilizer on him so that they could finish moving us.

The room we were moved in to was brighter, but still dimly lit. I was glad it wasn't a bright room. The few cages that surrounded us were disgusting, lined with bodily fluids and vomit, the kids…well, I feel like I shouldn't really call those horrible creatures in those cages kids. So, those _creatures_ in the cages were horrible and deformed and the saddest things I had ever seen in my life. I watched one of them being taken away, and when it came back I watched in horror as it literally puked its guts out and died. I listened as Angel threw up in disgust during that, but everyone else was smart enough to look away. I'm sure my face was green for days after that. The sounds of their moans and groans and retching echoed throughout the room and kept me up at night.

The first thing Iggy did when he woke from his tranquilizer trip was vomit. Or at least try to, but he had nothing left in his stomach to come back up, so he just hunched over on all fours and heaved dryly as I reached into his cage and rubbed his back, scratching his folded wings in that way he liked. My guess it was the smell in the room that brought him to that sickening gagging feeling. It made sense to me, seeing as, since he was blind, his other sense were heightened, so the smell was probably ten times worse for him than it was for us.

While we stayed in that room we were experimented on. We all got shots, but that was basically it. We got one shot a day, and several times the White Coats would come in and see how we were doing, occasionally giving us one of those physical tests that I guess you get at doctors offices every now and then. It was very basic and actually, surprisingly easy to handle. The shots didn't really seem to do anything. Of course, that doesn't mean we liked them anyway.

Iggy, though, they seemed to have a great interest in. They took him away often times several times a day, and when he came back he was just getting worse and worse. All the lean muscles he had developed over the years disappeared and he was soon no more than skin and bone. His hair became dull and long; covering his pale blue eyes, as well as the majority of his now hallow face. His eyes, I noticed, had sunken in and had dark crescent shapes under them, as well as bags. His skin became so pale and clammy he started to look like a ghost, which, half the time, I was wondering if that was all he was. The worst part, though, was his wings. Iggy used to have huge and, for lack of a better word, fluffy white wings that seemed to glow in the light, and they were beautiful. Now the feathers had fallen out and I'm pretty sure one of them was paralyzed because it just laid there all sad and ugly like. And it was just the one wing, because when he laid in his cage motionless and like a dead man, on occasion the other twitched or moved a little.

Iggy laying there was another thing. He stopped talking and moving. He once went a whole day without moving at all and Max and I had a panic attack, we thought our beloved Iggy was dead. We started shaking him and when he finally moved and let out a grunt, we were satisfied. We tended to leave him alone. Whenever we started bugging him too much, he tried to bite us.

The White Coats continued to move us to new rooms, each one brighter than the last, as if letting us get used to the lighting for a trip outside or something, so we didn't go blind like Iggy. Each room we went to, we got new, clean cages which seemed to get progressively bigger. But that might have just been because we were getting smaller and weaker. Who really knows? We never took the time to find out, that's for sure. In each room there were less and less experiments, as well. And the ones that were in got progressively better in looks from the first room where it all started. It's as if they were trying to eliminate us. Or evolve us, maybe.

And then, one day, we all woke up outside.

"Max…what's going on…?" Angel's meek voice said off to my right. I didn't look over; my eyes were trained on the forest wall at least 50 yards away from us. I can't seem to tear my eyes away. It was freedom, sweet, sweet freedom. My first thought was to go find food. Enough food for a buffet that would keep us full for a week. Maybe more for Iggy, since he was in the worst shape out of all of us.

"I don't know, Angel," Max said.

"Max, we're in clean clothes!" the Gasman gasped. I looked down when I heard that, only to find he was correct. And not only were we in clean clothes, but it looked like our skin has been scrubbed free of all the dirt and grime that had collected on our bodies the past…what? Month? Five months? We were practically shinning in the clear sunlight. We all smelled good and I had more energy than I had in a while. I wondered why we were all still in these cages when the doors were spread wide open for us.

We were all wearing the same clothes, basically. I was wearing a white long sleeved shirt and white sweatpants. It wasn't that cold out; I wondered why they put us in warm clothes…and why all white? Somehow it did not bode well. I looked around and saw they were all wearing some sort of variation of what I wore. Max wore a more loose fitting shirt than I was, with pants that were more like jeans than sweatpants. Gazzy wore a baggy t-shirt and shorts, while Angel had more of a dress with leggings, as well as Nudge. Iggy had the same clothing I did. Why it's all different, I didn't know. Maybe they expected us to have different skills and the clothing helped with that…? I don't know, it wouldn't really make sense, now that I think of it. Maybe it's all they had. And then I noticed that all of the shirts had slits in the back where our wings could slip out through.

"Iggy, wait!" I heard Max say. "It might be a trap!"

All my attention snapped over to Iggy in the cage next to me. He was crawling…no, he was pulling himself out of the cage. Smelling the fresh air, he lifted his head and after hesitating, pulled up a clump of grass and brought it to his nose. He smelled it and his face lightened up. Before any of us knew it, Iggy was out of his cage, rolling in the grass, with the biggest grin I had seen on his face in ages. That, in turn, made me grin, and I moved to the edge of the cage flooring and stuck my bare feet in the lush green grass. A shiver ran up my spine and I stood up. I stretched and breathed in the fresh air; brushed my now clean and much longer black hair over my shoulder and turned to face Max. I offered her my hand and I pulled her out of the cage and to her feet.

"Whether we're just out here for the time being, or they're permanently letting us go, I don't care," I said. I glanced down at Iggy, who was laying face down in the grass, looking content. "It's just good to be out again."

And she nodded in agreement.

But somehow, somewhere deep down, I knew this couldn't last forever. I had a funny feeling that would be the highpoint of our lives from that moment forward. Somehow, it'll just get worse from there.

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	3. Chapter 2: The Forest

**Next chapter, woo-hoo! I hope you enjoy.**

**Chapter 2**

We spent days just hanging out by the cages. None of us were sure if we were just allowed to leave, and for some reason, we didn't want to risk it. We talked about it, but we still never left the confines of the 50 yards between us and the wall of trees. Occasionally Max or I wandered over to the line of trees and pocketed some berries or what little fruit we could find while still being in view of the others. At night we went back into the cages to sleep. Max and I took watch at night and we discovered that the forest had wolves. I heard them one night, howling in the middle of the night. I'm surprised it didn't wake anyone else up, it was really loud. And, on occasion, I could have sword I saw something watching us.

By the fifth or sixth day of this, a White Coat came out to us.

"What are you all doing here?" he asked. We all nearly jumped out of our wings as we turned to look at him. "You're free to go, why are you still here?"

"It's a trap," Max said. I looked over at her and saw the wariness in her eyes. She stood tall and defiant. The White Coat, on the other hand, looked perplexed as his eyebrows raised high up his head.

"Um…" he started. "No, its not. You're free to go. I'm just here to collect what should be your abandoned cages…"

"Then there is a catch to all of this."

The White Coat sighed. "Just think of it as a final test. If you can make it through that forest-"

"We're free…to go…" All of our attention snapped to Iggy, who was curled up just barely outside his cage. His head was lifted off the ground looking in the general direction of our voices. That was the first thing he had said since this whole thing started. He pushed himself up and sat cross legged, waiting for one of us to speak. But when we did, none of us acknowledged the fact that Iggy finally spoke again, and I think that hurt him.

"Yes, you're free to go."

"We can just fly over," Nudge said. Since this all started she started speaking less and less, and I was worried she'd end up like Iggy. I kept trying to keep her talking most of the time; I didn't want her innocent life being damaged like Iggy's had. It tore me up inside seeing Iggy like this.

"Iggy's wing is paralyzed, he can't fly anymore," I reminded her. Nudge looked at Iggy and then stared at his horribly ugly wings. A look of disgust was made clear on her thin face. "We can take turns," I offered. When I got the curious looks, I continued. "Max and I can, anyway. Nudge, you too if you want. One of us will walk with Iggy through the forest; make sure he's okay, while the rest fly ahead. I doubt we'll make it over that forest in a day anyway. We can meet up at night, build a fire, and keep each other safe. Sound good?" It was unusual for me to take the lead, but Max wasn't saying or doing anything helpful as she stood there, having a staring contest with the White Coat. The White Coat was watching us warily, as if he didn't know whether we would bolt into the forest or attack him and eat his flesh. And strangely enough, I had a funny feeling that didn't cross one or two of the minds in our presence.

"It sounds good to me, Fang." I looked over and gave a weak smile at Max. If it was good for her, it was good for everyone. Iggy had no objections, so we had a plan to escape.

"Now, Mr. White Coat," Max said, turning to the scientist. "Exactly how big is this forest?"

XxXxX

I took the first walk with Iggy. It took some convincing to get him to stand on his feet, and since it had been so long, he was like a newborn deer, walking for the first time. The thought of Bambi first walking would be a good image used to describe the moment, so think of that, only ten times worse. He wobbled all over the place and majority of the time leaned against me or held on tight to my arm for balance. I never objected. I knew that eventually he would get the hang of walking again, and would be good to go. On occasion when I looked up I saw Max or one of the others flying above us in a break from the trees, where I could clearly see the sky. They were watching us, making sure everything was okay.

At one point, halfway through the day, Iggy seemed to give up. He started making strangled whining noises and let go of me to just sit on the ground. He mumbled something about being hungry and tired. I told him that if he just sat there and didn't move at all, I would be back as soon as possible with food. And he did, so I did as I promised. I managed to find some blue berries, a strawberry patch, and some wild onions. So I grabbed as much as I could, especially the onions, and hurried back to Iggy. He refused to eat the onions at first, so I let him eat the berries. But once he heard me eating the onions, he, of course, had to have some himself. So he ate them greedily. Almost all of it, actually. I let him have it, though; he needed it more than me.

When I tried to get him to move again, he bit my hand. It wasn't a little nibble, either. It was like a rabid dog bite that almost broke my skin. And I didn't understand why he was being so bothersome about moving again, he got food and a good hours worth of rest. We were losing time. When he bit me, I couldn't help but yelp in both pain and shock, and out of reflex, I slapped him across the face. Hard. Slapping him was not the best idea, because he was not compliant the rest of the day, even though it got him to move again. He refused to listen to me, and only stuck by me because he couldn't see, let alone stay up by himself.

Max and I knew Iggy developed a strange habit of biting when annoyed, but we often wondered why and where he developed this. Did he bite the White Coats when they were experimenting on him? Did he think we were White Coats? The two of us were up all night discussing what was going on the first night in the forest. Angel, Nudge, and Gazzy all slept close together by the nice fire we built, trying to keep warm. It was surprisingly cold at night. I'm glad they gave me warm clothes. I felt bad for the younglings in their colder looking clothes. I silently thanked the school for my clothes, and I really didn't feel guilty about it when I wasn't watching the others shiver. Iggy slept by himself, against a tree, away from everyone. Max sat on one side of the fire with her back to it, looking out into the trees. I sat on the other side, my back to Max. We talked quietly, occasionally looking at the others to make sure they were okay.

"Do you think we'll make it through this?" Max asked in a hushed tone. It snapped me out of my stupor. I was about to fall asleep, Max had been so quiet, the warmth on my back was very welcoming, and the dark trees were nothing exciting.

I had to think for a moment. "I think so. Don't you?"

"I'm not so sure," she said. I heard her body move and I looked over my shoulder to see her facing me. "Honestly, I think you, me and Nudge might be the only ones who will…"

"What makes you think that?" I asked, turning to face her better.

"Angel and Gazzy are too small and malnourished. I think they're getting sick from all this."

"And what about Iggy? Don't you think he will?" I watched as Max's eyes traveled slowly over to Iggy, lingered on him, and traveled back to me. She shook her head very slightly.

"Face it, Fang, he's not the Iggy we knew before all this," she said somberly. "I'm pretty sure they messed with his brain."

"That's a possibility, but why can't he make it? You make it sound like they did something, but its not life threatening."

"Well, you didn't let me finish. He doesn't trust us anymore, he doesn't speak, and he can hardly walk. He's extremely sick. I'm pretty sure he's retarded now-"

I cut her off. "I don't like that word. And I don't think he is. He made it very clear today that he was hungry and tired and frustrated."

"Fang, stop thinking everything's going to be okay with him. Its not."

I grit my teeth and turned away from her. I heard her sigh and move back to her original position. After a few minutes, making sure she wasn't looking back at me, I looked at Iggy somberly. He was asleep as far as I knew. I guess we'd find out in the morning, if he brings it up.

"We need to figure out how to hunt." I looked at Max again. "There are lots of creatures in here we could hunt and eat." I nodded in understanding.

"There's some fresh water streams, too," I said. Max looked at me and smiled weakly. We were back on the same page, and that page was titled "Survival". I smirked. It was just like old times.

XxXxX

By the second night, Max –who had been traveling with Iggy this time- had managed to make some hunting traps and caught a few rabbits and squirrels. She made it my job to get the meat off them and I cooked. I missed Iggy's cooking, it was much better and he would've known how to make the things we caught taste like gourmet food. But we managed with my cooking. At night, during our watches (since we started taking turns after getting used to our surroundings) we made daggers and more traps. Nudge had figured out how to make water tight bowls one night after she spent the night up with me. She couldn't sleep so I gave her some sticks and told her to figure out how to make something. With the water tight bowls we managed to get water and bring it to our campsites for at night. And if Iggy really didn't want to move anymore, and obviously needed a drink, we no longer had to drag him to the nearest stream to get him some water. We were getting along nicely. We could make it, I was sure.

Once everyone started eating meat again, our flock started looking healthier. We were fattening up and getting stronger again. We could go on longer flights without stopping to rest our wings. Iggy was starting to walk on his own again. Things were looking up. I had hope that we would make it out of there alive, all of us together.

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	4. Chapter 3: Eyes

**HELLO THERE! Chapter three, yay! Uh…warning! This chapter is sort of gory? I guess you could say? So if you are extremely squeamish or have issues with injuries to the facial region, um…you've been warned. And with that note, please enjoy! XD**

**Chapter 3**

The forest was a state. It was huge, there almost seemed to be no end of it, and that's the view from the sky. But there was a way out of it. The White Coat told us a few made it out before. Walking through the trees was a whole new perspective. Not only did it seem to go on forever, it seemed like the worlds biggest maze. On occasion, I found myself ending up going in circles. I couldn't imagine how confusing it was for Iggy. He had to trust us to get him out of there. Luckily, over the days we spent together, the trust bond grew. He no longer seemed wary of us, and he started speaking louder and much more than before. Before it was very rarely and it was barely audible mumbles. At night he slept closer to us. Well, closer to me than anyone else. I think he liked me best.

It was at the seventh day when he started talking the most. A lot of what he said was hard to understand, I think he was just making noise to test out his voice box more than trying to form a conversation. He was walking with me at the time and I watched as he constantly brought his hands up to his face or his now useless wing. He started speaking like Nudge every now and then, quick and with no spaces in between words. But he obviously wasn't talking to me, so I let him continue.

It was when he mentioned his eyes that made all my attention focus on him, though I stayed quiet, as to not scare the topic away. He mumbled incoherently for a while, but I distinctly heard the word "eyes" pop into the stream of jumbled words every now and then. Finally, I spoke up.

"What about your eyes, Ig?" I asked, walking up next to him and putting my hand on his shoulder. He jumped a little; I think he forgot I was there with him. We were, after all, walking in a straight line and there had been no trees in our way for quite some time. He tilted his head to the side, as if thinking.

"Eyes…" he mumbled, then stopped walking and brought his hands up to his face again. He lightly moved his fingers over his closed eyes. Through the parts in his hair I could see his eyebrows knit together in frustration and confusion. "My eyes don't work," he said. I nodded.

"No they don't. You're blind," I reminded him.

"I cannot see," he said. "My eyes don't work. Why do I need them if they don't work?" My heart skipped a beat, watching his fingers curl slightly, still near his unseeing eyes. I grabbed his hands and put them at his sides.

"Iggy, you need your eyes."

"But they don't work so I don't need them." He thrashed his arms around a bit, trying to free himself from my grasp, but I held firm. "Why can't I get rid of them, I won't miss them!"

"Jesus Iggy, do you know how disturbing that sounds?" I snapped. He stopped moving, probably surprised by my harsh tone. "Keep your eyes, Ig. They might start working again someday." Of course, I was lying through my teeth; I knew that wasn't possible, no matter how much I wish it were.

He wouldn't let the subject of not needing his eyes just drop. And I suppose I should've taken that as the first warning.

XxXxX

By the tenth day, things started getting worse. I flew at the tops of the trees, the rest of the flock, save Iggy and Max, were higher above me. Angel was dead quiet; she hadn't said anything in days. She missed Total, who had gone missing shortly after we were kidnapped by the School. We think he fell, and when I told Angel that that was a possibility, she cried for a day straight. I felt so guilty after that. Gazzy seemed to feel that he had to be the one to cheer everyone up when it got extremely gloomy among us. He entertained us with imitations of the White Coats – especially the one that told us we were free to go – being completely idiotic, or one of us flock members being silly. Although he absolutely refused to do an imitation of Iggy now that all this shit has happened to us. It seemed almost too cruel. Nudge was a lot less talkative than before, but she kept my hopes up that she was the same old Nudge by going on a rant or two every now and then. Max was still the leader. And I was still me. Iggy was the only one that changed the most, and you've probably already realized that by now.

I flew low. If I reached down I could grab a stick from the top of a tree with no problem. I developed a habit of flying low; in case anything happened with Iggy I was available in a heartbeat. And this was a time it came in handy.

Max let out a horrible shriek that made my blood run cold. In no time, I dived down into the trees after warning the others to stay up, in case it was one of the wolves I heard at night, or possibly something worse. And indeed, it was something worse. I landed and ran for where I heard Max scream. When I reached them and saw what was happening, I wanted to vomit. It was the most disgusting, stomach churning thing I could ever imagine.

Iggy had gouged his own eyes out.

And my first reaction was anger. But not anger at Iggy. No, the anger was directed right at Max, who just stood there and screamed. I guess it was then that I realized Max really did change. She acted all tough and brave for the others, but she was a coward. I wanted to yell at her, scream how she should have done something to stop him, and not just stand there and scream. Where was she when he did that? Was she even keeping an eye on him? She should've realized he needed to be watched carefully, I told her how he was talking about not needing his eyes anymore! God, I was so pissed.

But I pushed all those feelings down, deep down, and tore off some fabric from my shirt and went straight for Iggy. I grabbed his bloody wrists with a hard grip, squeezing them and I yanked his hands away from his face. I'm sure I turned green when I saw what was left of his gooey bloody eyes deflated within his fingertips. Swallowing whatever bile forced its way up my throat, I took what was left of his once rather beautiful foggy blue eyes and threw them away from us, leaving them to hide in the trees and never be seen again. Pulling Iggy to his feet, reluctantly, I dragged him to the nearest stream. He screamed at me to let him go, constantly telling me I was hurting him. He thought I was Max.

"Iggy!" I yelled finally, forcing him onto his knees at the edge of the stream. "What the hell were you thinking?" I demanded.

"I didn't need them!" he screamed at me. I pushed his head lower so his face was an inch from the water. I was so mad. I watched as blood dripped into the clear, clean water and be wisped away, disappearing on the horizon.

"You're an idiot, Ig," I grumble. I tore some cloth off Iggy's shirt and soaked it. I began cleaning him up, including his now empty eye sockets, much to my disgust. By the end of the cleaning, all the blood on his face and hands had transferred to my hands and shirt. I wrapped the first long piece of cloth I tore earlier around his head, over his sockets to keep them clean and free from infection. Iggy and I, both covered in his blood, looked like we just killed somebody. Standing up, I turned to find Max standing where she was earlier, vomit dripping down her chin and splattered on her shirt and on her bare feet and I sighed loudly.

"Clean up," I told her. She didn't move, so I stormed over to her. I tried to resist the urge, I really did, but I slapped her across the face until she looked at me, blinking the dazed and confused look from her eyes. "Clean up." I ordered her. I was done being second in command. If we wanted to get out of here, it would be under my command. I was the leader now; Max obviously couldn't handle it anymore. I guess I was the only one that didn't change during all this. I could hear Iggy sob and scream at the stream, and I knew he wasn't going anywhere any time soon. He sat hunched over, rocking back and forth like some psycho in a mental institution…maybe he belonged there after this. Maybe we all did.

Max moved to the stream, her face green and her steps wobbly. I followed her there and watched her clean up. She still had a dazed look on her face. I was almost sure that she would've tried to fight back me taking the lead, but I think she knew as well as I did that we wouldn't survive if she were the leader anymore. There were red welts on her cheeks from where I slapped her, and I didn't even feel guilty about it. I was still pissed as hell that she let Iggy do that to himself. Finally, when she cleaned off her chin, rinsed her mouth, and cleaned off the front of her shirt, I grabbed her arm and pulled her to her feet.

"What the hell is wrong with you?" I hissed, sticking my devilish face inches from her own angelic face. Her brown eyes widened, horrified at how angry I was. She knew I meant business. "Why didn't you stop him?"

Her mouth opened and closed several times, searching for the right words. "I-I…w-well…he…I didn't know!"

"Didn't know what?"

"I didn't know what he was doing! I thought he was right behind me. He was so quiet!" I let that information sink in.

"You weren't around him at the time?" she nodded and a new sense of anger welled up inside me. "Why didn't you check? Iggy's mental state is extremely fragile right now, Max, you should've noticed that! You should've been checking on him!" my voice began rising over the sound of Iggy's wails. "You should've noticed if he wasn't behind you. And when you noticed that, you should've run to find him before he did what he did!"

"By the time I found him he was pulling them out!" she screamed. "You don't think I tried to stop him?" her voice was high and shrill, almost crazy sounding. "Fang, I'm smart enough to notice something's wrong with him! I know that I should've stopped him! But I froze up, okay?" Tears formed in the corners of her eyes and no time little wet droplets dripped down her cheeks. She let out a sob. "I can't do this anymore, Fang! I'm scared and tired and hungry and, and, and…I just can't do it! We'll never get out of here!" I wrapped my arms around her and pulled her into a tight hug. She sobbed into my shoulder.

"I know it's hard," I told her, speaking softly in her ear. I rocked from side to side. I tried blocking Iggy's wails out. "But we'll make it out. I promise, I'll get us out of here in one piece, okay?" I looked down at her and she nodded.

Then I distinctly heard the hoarse voice behind me say, "I don't need my wings…"

**Tikes 3 please review! Thanks!**


	5. Chapter 5: Sick

**wow. it's been a hella long time. I'm so sorry. Honestly I don't think I'd ever get back to this, bet hello, here I am! I don't completly remember where I was going with this fic, but I'll think of something. My wirting has def. improved since I last wrote, so there will def be a new sense of writing style. anyway, sorry for the hella long wait, welcome back, please enjoy, don't forget to review.**

**Chapter 4**

I was in charge. Nobody argued with me when I gave orders, and that's because I developed a habit of hitting them when they didn't listen. I tried not to, but when they were being stubborn, a good slap and they listened. I didn't like to hit them, but it worked. And most of the time it never resorted to that in the first place. So things ran smoothly. I kept a close watch on Iggy. I took all the walks with him and trusted Max with the rest of the flock on flights. If anything went wrong, they went straight to me. And nothing really went wrong.

The flock knew what happened to Iggy. They helped with him. Well, Gazzy did. He was such a trooper; he followed all my orders without a second thought, was willing to help keep Iggy out of trouble, and often walked with us. It made me happy and proud that someone in the flock was like that. Max occasionally helped Iggy, but I think she had become permanently disturbed by the eye incident that she wanted to avoid Iggy more than ever. Angel was the same. I saw the way she looked at him; it was almost like she were scared by him. Nudge helped out once in a blue moon. A lot of the time she just talked to him, getting his mind off about his wings, which have become his new favorite subject. She was reminding him about cooking and making bombs and all the old stuff we used to do. It brought smiles to Iggy's face as he seemed to remember what she was talking about, so that was a bonus in my book.

By the twelfth night, I sat up during watch. My eyes scanned the dark trees and constantly grazed over my flock, lingering on Iggy to make sure he didn't try to sneak off, like he had been trying before. After the whole eye incident, his wings had become a new fancy to him. And that worried me. I didn't want him trying to chop his wings off, so I had to make sure to keep an eye on him, and make sure all the knives Max and I made were as far from him as possible. It was a huge relief to have Gazzy helping me with that.

Suddenly Angel was in my lap, curled up and resting her head against my chest. Out of reflex, I wrapped my arms around her and held her close. Something must be upsetting her. Either that or she got in a fight with Max, because she normally goes straight for Max when something's wrong. She was mumbling something under her breath so quietly I had to bend over and stick my ear right next to her lips so I could hear her.

"Iggy scares me, Fang," she whispered. My eyes flickered over to the sleeping Iggy. Gazzy was curled up next to him. "I heard his thoughts."

"What did you hear?" I asked, curiosity welling up. I found myself wondering a lot more on what could possibly be going through Iggy's messed up mind. Angel poked at a blood stain on my shirt from the eye incident, hesitating to say anything. "You can tell me, Angel. It might give me an idea on how to keep him from doing anything like that again." She obviously knew what I was talking about, because she removed her hand quickly and gripped at her own clothing. Slowly, she looked up at me with her big blue eyes, and I saw the fear that was swimming through them. She didn't speak though. "Is there something he wants? Something that hurts? What is it? I want to help him, Angel, and you know that. So what is it?"

"He wants something," she mumbled.

"What does he want?" I asked, my head tilting to the side like a curious puppy. She curled up and buried her face in my chest. It took a little coaxing, but she finally spoke.

"He wants blood, Fang," she looked up at me again. "He wants blood. He's so angry and in so much pain. He's so miserable." I watched silently, shocked. Tears formed in her eyes. "His thoughts are so jumbled and they don't make sense…but I keep finding the pain and the blood lust…I'm scared, Fang, what if he hurts himself again? Or one of us? What if he hurts you or Gazzy?"

I tried to speak, but it seemed that I lost my voice for the moment. My mouth just opened and closed for about a minute. Finally, once I cleared my throat and took a deep breath, my voice returned. "Well…don't worry, Angel. I'll stop him if he tries to hurt us. We'll be fine."

She nodded slightly and let out a long, soft sigh. She had been quiet for a while, I wondered if she fell asleep. "Fang?"

"Yeah?"

"Are we ever going to get out of here?"

"Yes."

"All of us?"

"I'll make sure of it," I promised.

Silence.

"Fang?"

I let out a soft sigh. "Yes?"

"I don't think this forest ends…"

XxXxX

The forest was getting to everyone. I could tell. They all wanted out ASAP, and I wished I could bring them to the end that soon. But I was lost. From above the trees there seemed to be an end, but it was unreachable from the inside. I wondered if any of the experiments that were let through here, if there were any besides us, made it to the end. I hoped to God that there was, and that they got out, it was the only sense of hope I had left.

What made it worse was that we all got stuck in the forest for an extra few days because something Max and I caught for dinner made us all sick. Well, made everyone but me sick, but I had a feeling it was a matter of time before I got sick as well.

It all started when I woke up the thirteenth day.

I sat up and looked around. The fire had fizzled out into burning embers. I made a note to take care of those later. Nudge and Angel slept curled up next to each other on one side, Iggy and Gazzy on the other. It all seemed normal enough, until I got a closer look at their faces. Gazzy, Iggy and Angel's faces were all green and all of their faces were screwed up in an expression that showed their discomfort. I didn't see Max, but I could hear her. She was up and in the bushes, vomiting up what we ate for dinner. I ran to her and held her hair back. I looked away as she puked, and when she was done I waited for her to move away from the nice puddle she created to drop her now long hair. I let the strands slide from my fingers, missing the soft, silky feel they used to have. Now it was greasy and coarse, full of knots that would probably never come out.

We went back to the others in silence. She thanked me and curled up on the ground. "I think our food was bad…" she mumbled. I nodded, sitting down next to her and I gently rubbed her back. That was probably the most tender I had been since this whole thing had started. She stared straight ahead at the burning embers in front of us and listened as everyone started to get up. And as if someone set a timer for the puke bomb, everyone had run their own direction to go expel the bad food from the night before. I let out a long sigh.

"Yeah…yeah, you were right, Max. The food was bad," I said, rubbing my temples. When one problem wasn't enough, God just had to throw in food poisoning. My life was fucking fantastic!

Hours passed and I was up and running around, taking care of everyone. I held back Max, Nudge, Angel, and even Iggy's now fairly long hair as they puked in the bushes, ran to get water with the bowls Nudge made, was constantly cleaning everyone off, it was just a disgusting mess. Best day of my life, that's for sure. Luckily, though, I did manage to find some mint leaves for them to get the taste out of there mouths, and eventually they were able to keep down some virtually flavorless berries I found. I had to test the berries first, though, to make sure they weren't poison or anything. That was a fun experience. While my flock was sick, I sat in a berry patch, stuffed two of the berries into my mouth, ate them, and waited to die. Once I was sure I was safe, I gave them to the others and waited for a rainbow mess to shoot from their mouths. Luckily, they were all getting better by that point.

We were all stuck at that spot for at least a day and a half. The path I trudged going back and forth from our resting grounds to the creak had been worn down to nothing. I was tired and feeling faint by the end of the second day. Everyone was feeling better and that's when it hit me.

A wave of dizziness fell over me as I walked back to camp with yet another batch of clean water. My footing failed me as I tripped over myself, falling into the dirt. I felt a cool dampness cover me, the water splashed everywhere. It's sad that in the state I was in the only thing I was concerned about was making another trip to the creak.

I felt Max tugging me up, saying something I couldn't completely make out, but I knew she was concerned by how freaked out her tone sounded. She helped me to my feet and began to lead me to the camp. One step forward and the entire contents of my stomach decided to projectile vomit itself out of my body. I don't know if the food poisoning was just kicking in at that moment, or that I was just really good at forcing myself to ignore being sick. Either way, it all came at once, and I was down for the count.

Apparently I was out for a full day. When my stomach finally settled and I felt strong enough to be back on my feet, everyone else seemed perfectly healthy. They had been taking care of me and I didn't even realize, I had been so out of it. In a sense, I was glad I got a bit of revenge, they had to take care of the incredibly sick one for a change.

I spoke to Max briefly, letting her know I was feeling much better. I thanked her for helping me, and we agreed that we would be back on the move first thing in the morning.

"Oh, hey, Fang?" Max voice went quiet. I looked over at her. "Iggy's been worried sick about you."

"Has he?"

She nodded quietly, glancing over to him. Iggy sat by himself, his knees tucked up to his chest and his head cocked to the side, as if listening to everything around him.

"He was surprisingly good while you were sick…probably because he was still not feeling good. I don't know. You better go let him know you're okay."

I nodded at her and walked over slowly, still a little tipsy. I crouched in front of him.

"Iggy," I said. His ears perked and his head straightened. "Hi, Buddy."

He smiled slightly. "Fang," he said, sounding happy.

"Yeah. I'm okay. I'm feeling a lot better. Were you worried?" Iggy nodded quietly. I ruffled his hair a bit and he smiled softly. "Don't be worried. We're going to start moving in the morning, okay?"

"Okay," he said. I'm sure he probably didn't entirely understand what I meant, but he was agreeing to it so all was well. I stood up again and turned back to the group. I felt a hand grip my arm, hard. I looked down to him, a bit surprised.

"Fang," he said again.

"Yes?" I responded, cautious. His grip tightened for a moment and then he let go, turning his head away from me. He never spoke.


End file.
